The Growth Worry

I thought the fact that the Indian IT industry is $50 billion will bring lots
of cheer. I believed that the hat-trick of 30 percent annual growth will only
bring positive vibes. I was sure that another hat-trick on the domestic growth
of over 25 percent will be a big motivator. But surely that is not how everybody
looks at the big picture. A lot of us are actually worried that will we be able
to sustain this growth, or the time for slowdown has come.

My take on this is a little different. I do not believe that growth of
overall Indian industry, as well as that of the domestic market is going to slow
down significantly. If at all, the slowdown will be marginal, not even worth
taking note of. In fact, there are going to be quite a few areas where we are
likely to see a stronger growth than we saw last year.

Coming back to this little panic about growth, I imagine that if we think in
the long term, it is crucial that IT growth in our country is not just about
numbers. Not only me, but those who are investing in IT, and those who are
supposed to be the end beneficiaries of IT, would be happier if the returns on
IT bring a more visible change-in terms of efficiencies and profitability, and
in terms of making life and work simpler.

For instance we are seeing lots of investment in pharmaceutical, but costs of
medicine, and quality are still a matter of concern. We hear of so many cases of
spurious medicines being sold in the market, the brunt of which is borne by the
common man. So how has IT helped in pharmaceutical business? Similarly, millions
are pouring into e-governance projects, but the final impact on the citizens at
large is still not visible.

I therefore believe that, more than number growth, the priority of the IT
community at large-including vendors and CIOs-should be growth in terms of
better utilization of IT resources. This implies that whatever is being invested
on IT-in large, medium or even small enterprises-needs to be consolidated.
Therefore I would be happy if there is focus on software, applications,
processes, and other stuff that enhances usability rather than computing power.

A few years back, a software and applications centric IT budget was not very
common. The rise of domestic IT consumption is however changing all that, and
enterprise users are now demanding tangible returns on investments in IT. I am
very sure that if the enterprise users can see some solid benefits from all the
money they spent on IT, they will have a much bigger plan on IT spend in the
coming years. This is the time to become true partners of your customers and
advice accordingly, and not just want to sell more and more.